Perfect Chemistry is a classic of today’s love stories. It starts out with a perfect picture of the perfect American girl named Brittany. She is the ideal high school beauty she’s blonde, beautiful to everyone who looks at her and she’s also the head of the high school cheerleading squad. She comes from a well to do middle class family. To make things even better she is dating the quarterback of the football team. This seems perfect right but Brittany’s life is not all it seems to be but she does not let those around her know. She has a disabled sister who her family has yet to put in a nursing home because Brittany can not come to terms with doing such a thing. On Brittany’s first day of school she is in Chemistry class when she is paired up with a not so perfect American Boy in the terms of Brittany. He was Mexican and he was considered to be the biggest bad add that attended Fairfield High School. He was a part of a gang which was considered to be more serious than a schoolyard group of bullies throwing their weight around. The boy’s father had been part of the gang as well when he was in high school so the boy was following in his father’s footsteps. As these two spend more time together they realize that no one they have been with made them feel more alive, and no one has ever made them feel more intense.
This book relates to many aspects of YA lit criteria. For one it deals with many issues that young adults deal with for example love, their appearance to others, gangs, friends, wanting to be accepted, getting to know who they are as a person. The book does not deal much with parents and is written from the viewpoint of a young adult. It allows us to enter into the lives of those who are in high school.
I felt that the following link would be interesting to those who want to find reviews on books that are similar to Perfect Chemistry.

http://thecozyreader.com/2010/03/short-review-perfect-chemistry-by-...

My opinion of this book is that it would be a good read for outside the classroom. I don’t feel that it should be used in the classroom. I say that because it is kind of like all the other young adult love stories at least that is the feeling that I got from it. The appeal for them to read it outside of school would be that it is very well relatable at least for those who are in high school. I would recommend this book to any high school girl who wants to know that it is normal the feelings she may be having about some guy whether he is the quarterback or the nerd.

Jekel Loves Hyde by Beth Fantaskey

 

Connection to YA criteria:

 

YA authors write from the perspective of young people: Check. The book’s narration switches between Tristen and Jill, so that we get both of their perspectives and feelings about the obstacles that arise for them.

 

YA lit gets rid of parents so the young people can take credit for their accomplishments: This novel actually presents Tristen’s father as the primary antagonist, because he (or the monster that has overtaken him) attempts to prevent Jill and Tristen from finding a cure. Rather than eliminating the parents, this novel establishes parents as a source of conflict. However, once Tristen defies his father, he is able to save himself from suffering the same fate.

 

YA books are optimistic with characters making worthy accomplishments: Trying to break a decades-old family curse is definitely a heavy burden for two high school students, but they stood up against all odds (and monsters) to do so. At some points in the novel it seems as though both Tristen and Jill are doomed, but I believe that only created added to the suspense of the story. I won’t give away the ending, which was really surprising, but Jill and Tristen found a solution that their fathers, a scientist and a psychologist, could not.

 

Successful YA novels deal with emotions that are important to young adults: Especially during the high school years, youths are presented with various, often conflicting, paths to choose. Exhibiting reluctance and uncertainty at collaborating with Tristen, Jill is torn between leaving her safe world and falling into a risky venture with a boy she barely knows. She has to come out of her shell and pursue the future she wants for herself, without knowing for sure what the outcome will be. Tristen is also given a difficult choice: risk his life to destroy his inner monster with an experimental chemical formula or join his father and become an inhumane, yet powerful, monster. This novel presents both protagonists as youths who are forced to choose between the seemingly “easy” path and the path they truly want to follow to pursue their own desires.

  

Links: Here's a link to the prologue found on the author's website: http://bethfantaskey.com/jekel-prologue.html

 

Recommendation: I love that this book takes a classic novel, reinvents it in a modern setting, and still references the classic itself. That’s a lot. I don’t know if this is necessarily teachable in a classroom, but I would keep it on the bookshelf and encourage students to read it. There wasn’t much--if any--explicit dialogue or scenes, so this book would be appropriate for readers aged 13+.

 

The tables have turned on the former “Fearsome Fivesome” member, Regina.  Once a member of the both feared and admired clique of high school girls, Regina has been banished due to nasty rumors about Regina and her best friend’s boyfriend at a party.   Regina swears the rumors aren’t true (the truth is, her best friend’s boyfriend tried to rape her) but that doesn’t stop the other girls from ruthlessly bullying her and tormenting her.  The now, “Fearsome Foursome” won’t stop until Regina wants to die.

We have all heard the saying, “what goes around, comes around”.  Regina was one of the bullies who used to torture and torment others and would probably have continued to do so if the tables hadn’t turned on her. Now, after alienation from her group of “friends”, Regina is at the mercy of a boy she used to bully, Michael.  Michael doesn’t easily accept Regina’s friendship.  Who can blame him?  Once the Fearsome Foursome see Regina is becoming friends with Michael, he, too, becomes a target. 

 Regina does feel sorry for the torture she inflicted on him and others.  She felt that being that way was required to maintain her place in the Fearsome Fivesome.  Regina’s regret makes her character more likeable.  Regina is both likeable and unlikable as the protagonist. She became more likeable when she admitted to herself, and others, that she was once a complete bi@#$.  We then can feel sorry for her and empathize with her character and the pain she is going through.

The ending is not the positive resolution a YA reader will find in many YA books.  But the ending does fit the story, perfectly.

The plot is similar to Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson.  Teen violence, peer pressure, alienation, and bullying are the unfortunate components of both stories.  Both characters have come of age in the books.

I would recommend this book to be put on a recommended reading list but not necessarily one to be taught in the classroom.  This is a story they have all heard before, unfortunately, but the book does have a redeeming quality and will speak to the young adult reader.  I would recommend this for the 13-18 year-old reader.

 

Here is a link to the author's website: http://courtneysummers.ca/novels/some-girls-are/